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And the form Shakespeare, master of form, chose to frame the
sonnets in was none. In the two examples you cite above, Sidney's
sequence being perhaps disguised autobiography, and Petrarch's
autobiographical on the surface but decidedly for public
consumption, are nevertheless two examples of a thought out form.
In Elizabethan poetry, as in all of Elizabethan court society,
as in all of Shakespeare, form usually takes presidence over
everything else... at least form walks into the room first.
... of course, as the plays became more complex, (Hamlet, MacBeth,
Lear) the plots themselves have as sub-themes a fight for
presidence of substance over form, style, status quo and tradition.
Shakespeare, as the breaker of forms, (by way of being to big to remain in any
for very long)writes a sequence of sonnets that are not, in any sense, unified
by theme, sequence, story line.
I don't see the sonnets as 'bare' expression, if I compare them with
Ginsburg's 'Howl' or or Whitman or even William Calos Williams... certainly
these are autobiograhical poets, and Shakespeare's sonnets are not 'individualistic'
expression in the same sense. But the sort of peotic freedom Walt Whitman
had was not possible for Shakespeare in his time. Poetic expression was, but
only within rigid form. The thing that surprises me most is that the sonnets
are as expressive as they are. They are like a corsetted woman in
hoop dress who can still can convey primal sexuality - a rigidly constrained form,
the author conforming to that form because it was what people understood, and the
author wanted to be understood, yet the author makes no attempt to create a sequence
that would appeal to a large public readership. He actually does the
opposite at every turn. Vagueness, daring yet oblique sexual puns, near
snivelling yearning and pleading and heartbreak laid plainly on the page,
and then, later, with the black lady, bitterness and sexual masochism.
What author in his right mind would construct a sonnet sequence for public
consumption like this one? Even shakespeare's most difficult plays are written
for an audience, not for an IDEA. Hamlet has the gravedigger sequence,
written explicitly for humor and audience relief. Where is the
correlative in the sonnets? They are relentlessly honest, without
much humor, way past earnest, and for all their wordplay and form,
bare in their honesty. None of this fits in the least with the picture
we have of shakespeare, the smart, savvy businessman writer.
Posted by Bill Routhier on April 13, 1997 at 21:13:18
In Reply to "Still..." posted by Cloten on April 13, 1997 at 09:45:49
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